A Quiet Day
by tag
Disclaimer: Charmed and characters are copyright © WB / CB.
Author's Note: Changed future, the day after Chris's 14th birthday.
Piper looked up from the breakfast she was cooking as she heard a sound from behind her. Turning around, she saw Chris leaning against the doorframe, watching her with a wide smile on his face.
"Hey, kitten."
"Mom!" her younger son protested. "That's almost worse than calling me 'peanut'!"
"More appropriate, though," Piper pointed out, smiling at the memory of 12-year-old Chris as a squalling, hissing kitten. Not that she'd been amused at the time - her boys were still not allowed to use any spells Wyatt had written unless she or one of her sisters had checked them first - but it had been solved easily enough, and in retrospect it was rather funny. At least, the adults and Wyatt had all thought so. Chris still got embarrassed about it, though, which made it perfect teasing material.
"Hmph."
"So, how does it feel to be fourteen and a day old?" Piper asked, as he pushed away from the doorframe and came to stand next to her.
He looked up at her for a moment - he hadn't received the growth spurt he obviously would at some point, because he was still shorter than her - and gave her a look she couldn't identify, before wrapping her in a tight hug. "Happy."
Putting down the spoon she was using to stir the scrambled eggs, Piper wrapped her own arms around him. Every so often, Chris would show up wherever she was, and just hug her. It was something he'd done since he was a toddler; he did it to Leo and her sisters as well. She enjoyed it; Wyatt had decided when he was seven that hugs were for babies, and she missed them. But not even his older brother's scorn had stopped Chris's habit. "That's good, sweetie - I'm glad. So... why does that make you feel happy, particularly?"
"You're alive," Chris replied, his voice muffled from where he was pressing his face against her shoulder.
Piper blinked. That was... odd. Not that Chris was happy she was alive, but that he'd answered her question that way.
"Why specifically today?" she asked carefully. "You were pretty tense most of yesterday - tenser than I expected you to be for a surprise party."
Chris's arms tightened. "Yesterday... was the day of The Event."
Piper froze in shock for a moment, then tightened her own arms, not wanting Chris to get the wrong idea.
'The Event'. She'd hated that the older Chris had referred to her death in the old future that way, so distant and clinical. But only herself and Victor had known about that. Or so she'd thought.
"Chris?" Piper pressed a kiss to his head. "What makes you say that?"
"I... remember," her son said after a moment. His voice was still muffled by her shoulder. "I've remembered the important parts... forever, it feels like. The other things... the minor things... sometimes I remember them if they're triggered by something, like meeting someone my other self knew casually. Some of them I don't think I'll ever remember. But the big things... like The Event..."
No wonder he'd been so tense yesterday. Reaching up with one hand, she ran it through his hair, again and again. Much like she'd so often wanted to do with his 'other self', but had never had the courage to attempt. She also gave him another kiss.
"Do you know how much I love you, Chris?"
That got him to lift his head. "Mom?"
"Your other self did so much for us, and then he died to save your brother, and we thought he was gone forever. But if you have his memories, he's not all gone; he's a part of you. Definitely not all of you," she gave him a kiss on his forehead, "because you're my kitten, and he was my peanut, but a part of you. And so I can tell you what I never got the chance to tell him. Thank you."
A hesitant smile crossed Chris's face at that; an expression she had seen far too many times on his future counterpart's face. She didn't pull away from him, though. She was telling the truth. If future-Chris's memories were a part of the son she had given birth to, it meant that he wasn't completely lost. And both of them were her sons, different versions of them, yes, but her sons.
And... it explained a great deal. The seemingly-random hugs. The way he looked at Leo, almost in awe, sometimes. The way he sometimes clung to Victor. And the way he used his powers, right from the very first, as though he was practiced in their use.
"Thanks, Mom," Chris said quietly, before resting his head back against her shoulder.
"Love you," she repeated, running her hand through his hair again. "Now, do you want to help me prepare breakfast, given that you're already up?"
That got a light laugh out of him, a laugh she'd never heard from the future-Chris. "Sure," he agreed. Then he tightened his own arms momentarily before stepping away to study the ingredients on the counter. "Love you too, Mom."
They set to work with the easy rhythm they'd established when Piper was first teaching him to cook. The only mention Piper made of what she'd just been told was to remind him, as she was putting the eggs in the frying pan, to tell his grandfather so that Victor didn't spend the entire year worrying about her.
"Got it, Mom," Chris replied, with an engaging grin. "So, can I flip the pancakes?"
"And have them end up on the ceiling again?" Piper asked in mock-horror.
"Mo-om! I have a lot better control now!"
"All right, prove it to me, then."
"Thanks, Mom!"